NAIROBI: Kenyan police said the murder of a politician in the capital Nairobi appears to have been premeditated and targeted, with the president promising on Thursday that those responsible would be caught.

Charles Ong’ondo Were, an MP for the Kasipul area in the country’s west, was shot when his car stopped at a red light on a busy thoroughfare by an unknown assailant who fled the scene on a motorbike, police said.

Political killings are rare in Kenya, considered a relatively stable country in the turbulent Horn of Africa region. President William Ruto expressed condolences, and on Thursday urged police to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.

“Those responsible must be held to account,” he said in a post on X. The motorbike passenger shot the MP at around 7:30pm as he sat in the car on the major Ngong Road, according to eyewitnesses cited in the police statement released hours afterwards.

“The nature of this crime appears to be both targeted and premeditated,” National Police Service spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga said in the statement.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2025